late spring in his front garden Part 1

WM is the gardener at our house. The front garden completely covers the space between our house and the footpath, except for our double driveway. We have no lawn on our property at all! When WM does the mowing of the the footpath (we call it the "nature strip"), it takes him less than an hour to get out the mower and edger, do the jobs, then clean and put the tools away! Too easy!!

Because most of the plants in the front garden are currently in flower, and because most of them have teeny, tiny flowers, I will do this "tour" in two sections: today and tomorrow. The front garden is completely planted in Australian natives so many of these plants will be "exotic" to most of you!

We begin our tour at the garage doors. To the left of the driveway (looking at the street), is this magnificent stand of "kangaroo paws" so named because the shape of the flower looks like the tiny front paws of Australia's most famous marsupial!These plants in flower are over five feet high. The plants themselves come up to my lower thighs.To the right of the driveway, on the fence line (no one in our street has front fences), is the letter box. Between the letter box and the driveway is a low growing but wide plant which I call the "spider" grevillea
- again because of the shape of the flowers although it is much prettier than any spider I have ever seen.

There is curved bark-covered path leading from the letter box to the front door. To the left of the path and quite close to the grevillea is a very bright stand of everlasting daisies (a native of Western Australia). The plant itself is short, barely eight inches tall. The bright flowers' petals feel like paper, which gives rise to one of its common names - paper daisy; although in florist shops it is called "everlasting daisy".

If you want to pick it, it's best to choose young flowers,
as the older ones can look quite scruffy.

Lest you think that all Australian native plants are yellow, look at this plant opposite the daisies, on the other side of the path.

I call it star flowers for obvious reasons! It's certainly easier than "isotoma axillaris" and prettier than "Rock Isotome"!
Following the path towards the house, we come to the little wooden bridge built over a dry water course (man-made). It once flowed but because neighbourhood children were attracted to our garden as a place to hide and play, when the lining of the creek wore out we chose not replace it.

To the left of the bridge is a very low growing ground cover called scaveola. It, too, has the mauve flowers so common in our garden.The flowers are very small, about the size of my little finger nail and roughly resemble the shape of fans - hence their common name.
I will leave you on the bridge, just a metre and a half from the front door, to catch your breath. Relax and enjoy the view. Feel free to wander around and take a closer look.

I hope you'll join me for Part 2 tomorrow.